


and she loved a boy very, very much

by Anonymous



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Depression, Drugs, Gen, Illness, Streetlife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 04:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: --even more than she loved herself.-assorted one-shots about Catherine Todd





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree."

The room is dark. Muffled. Cold. 

Jason slips his shoes off near the door, socked feet padding across the hardwood floor. He blinks his eyes.

Ah. There.

A mattress sits in the middle of the living room, blankets flat across her chest.   
Jason makes his way to the edge of the carpet but stops. He swallows. He clenches his hands, knuckles swollen and cracked with blood. He swallows again, but this time there’s something in his throat. 

Son of a bitch, he swears to himself. He rubs at his eyes. Flinches. Those are swollen too. 

“Jay?”

Jason freezes. Damnit. His bawling baby noises woke her up. 

“Jay?” she calls again, too weak to lift her head off the pillow. “You cold, baby?”

Jason shuffles off his jacket, chest heaving with something–he don’t know what. He ain’t crying, so he don’t know what’s got his chest moving like that. He kneels by the mattress, carpet tickling his knees. “H-hi, Ma,” he greets her. 

She smiles.

Jason tilts his head forward but looks away. 

The oven clock says 1:17 AM but you can’t trust it. It’s always messing up. 

He’s always messing up. 

“Mom,” he whispers, voice cracked like street pavement. “I d-did som-mething b-bad.”

* * *

“I can run them,” he said confidently. 

The others didn’t look impressed. 

“I can,” he insisted. “I’m pretty fast, and strong.”

“You’re a kid,” one voice pointed out, a little acrimoniously.

Jason turned in the voice owner’s direction, glaring. “Yeah, and I can fit places most people don’t, dickweed.”

The clearing echoed with titters.

“All right,” the young man who led the gang laughed, clapping Jason on the back. “We start you out small, you run the full thirteen percent.” The grip on Jason’s shoulder tightened. “Capiche?”

Jason struggled a smile. “Not yet. I want a cut.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want a fucking cut.”

Silence.

“What? It ain’t as if there’s not enough left over.”

“I didn’t take you for a junkie, kid.”

“Heroin got some medicinal properties, yeah? I’ve got medicinal needs.”

“I know you,” a girl to his left said in surprise. She addressed the gang leader. “That’s JT, his mom’s got that sickness.”

“She ain’t!” Jason shot back stubbornly.

The girl sent him a look. “He needs the straight stuff, Antony,” she announced. “Can’t lace it with shit, it’ll kill her.”

Antony rubbed his jaw. “She taking now?”

Jason bristled. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but yes,” he replied. 

“If she’s got that sickness why don’t she take pain meds?”

Jason shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t act fucking dumb,” he spat angrily. “If you know she’s got the sickness, you know why she can’t get pain meds.”

Searing pain. 

Jason gripped the inside of his pockets, biting his lip to shut up a gasp. 

Antony cuffed his head again. “The next fucking time you talk to me like that,” he promised, pointing a finger at the boy, “I’m gonna slap you like a bitch.”

Jason glared up at him but stayed silent. His head throbbed. 

Antony stepped back, looking considerate. “You can fit in suitcases?”

“Yes.”

The gang gazed at Antony, questions in their posture. 

Jason couldn’t wait much longer. “So am I running or what?” he demanded, twitching.

* * *

The tears come rolling down his face but he can’t stop. He’s a big baby. A big damn baby who can’t finish the fights he picks, who gets the shit beat out of him just for stopping for breath. 

Catherine’s eyes are shining in that half-awake way, tinged with that otherworldly knowledge that tricks Jason into believing she’s lucid. “…Jay,” she says after a long while, dragging her limp hands across the span between them. “Jaybaby, don’t cry. Don’t cry, darling. Come sleep.”

Jason shakes his head, crowding up against himself to cry. 

“Jay,” said so softly, so gently. He looks up. She smiles at him, arms reaching out. Like she did when he was five and he broke the antenna and wouldn’t stop crying. 

Jason blinks away his tears. “M-mom.”

It was bad. It was real bad. But he was doing it for a reason, and a reason made doing a bad thing okay sometimes, right? 

(Right?)

“Come here, Jay.“ 

He swallows and wipes his nose with his sleeve. Slowly, gently, he crawls onto the mattress and under the blankets. It feels cool and smooth. 

“You’ve got rain in your hair.”

Not rain. 

“Yeah,” he replies, choking a little bit. He tilts his head back on the pillow. He can see the city lights reflecting on the patio glass door. The Narrows hardly ever see real city lights. Must be a rich people party downtown. He shifts. Goddamn but does everything  _burn_. Why does blood burn? It burns like ice, sometimes. Like when he screams and screams and  _screams_  but there’s no one around and the air is thick and he’s drowning, they’re holding him down,  _he’s drowning_ –

She sighs against his ear. “Sleep, baby. Sleep.“ 

Jason inhales. 

He twists to his side and crowds back into her arms, the same as he did since he was two. His back against her chest. He can feel her faint breathing on his neck. 

The oven clock ticks 1:21 AM. 

His tears feel sticky on his cheek. 

Borrowed time. 

He closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The middle section didn’t necessarily take place that night. It was just the catalyst for what Jason experienced prior to returning home at present.


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of children’s shrieks bounced against the apartment window, echoing into the hollow chimney. Jason blinked in the darkness, holding off a desire to yank open the window and shout into the street. Little punks playing what, ball? 

But he couldn’t shout. Not when Mom was like this. 

Jay hadn’t shouted in a long time. 

Mom looked so white against the yellowed pillow. Her cropped hair stuck out starkly, like the filter of shadows in sunlight. His fingers ached to brush through her long hair once more. Not that it would help. His knuckles were sore from work anyways.

Catherine shifted. The boy leaned closer, knobby spine hunched in a alertness.

“Jay,” she whispered, eyes glimmering despite the darkness. “What day is it?”

Jason didn’t hesitate. “Summer break.”

She exhaled in what seemed like relief, or it could have just been pain. 

“How you doing, Mom,” he asked, gnawing on his lip. He knew how she was doing. But he charted her pain levels on her cognizance. 

Her eyelashes fluttered, “Good,” she murmured, “good.” He had to lean forward to hear her words. Her lips were dry. Jason swallowed, sitting back. How stupid of him. He needed to make a run, needed water and chapstick and–

“You should,” a slight gasp, “play.”

He shook his head. “I’m okay,” he told her. He leaned his elbows on the mattress. “I’m happy with you.”

Her eyes closed, but she smiled. “I love you, baby.”

Jason stared at her pallid face. He reached over, hand posed in indecision, then gently touched her head. He released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Still soft.

Still Mom. 

_I love you_. 

“I won’t leave you,” he promised instead. His quiet fierceness was contrasted by the sound of childish laughter outside. He laid his head down, muffled by sheets. “I won’t ever leave you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much of Jason’s life was just Catherine and him. I think his experiences (such a soft word to describe what it was) really contribute to his character. I think it’s impossible to see Jay as different characters, before and after. Jason was the same Jason who learned to read between Catherine’s legs at the laundromat. The same Jason who sang along to their old creaky radio, and who let Cathy kiss him goodbye despite being old (nine, in fact). The same Jason that stayed inside, day after day, hoping to get a conversation in despite Mom’s pain. The same Jason who grew stronger while his mother grew weak. 
> 
> The same Jason who lived on without her. 
> 
> Bruce isn’t a footnote. But he came next. Bruce didn’t get Bruce’s Jason. Bruce got Catherine’s. 
> 
> This is a whole lot of speculative meta for such a tiny one-shot.


End file.
